Heuser nodded. ‘It wasn’t easy, no. But they were hard times for everyone. We all had to make do as best we could. Edith and I settled down in Ludwigshafen and for a few years, yes, I was as low as I have ever been in my career. I had periods of unemployment and often felt obliged to accept jobs that were well beneath my capabilities. I was a clerk in a transport company in Mutterstadt. I was a junior sales manager for a battery factory in Ludwigshafen itself …’ he sighed. ‘Hardly places to inspire one, but I was grateful enough for the work.’

  ‘How did you make your way back to the police?’

  ‘Well, after the Federal Republic was founded in ’49 it was difficult at first for men of my generation who’d been civil servants in the old days.’

  ‘You mean servants of the Third Reich.’

  ‘There you are: that was exactly the problem we faced. We were all treated as though we had been Nazis, which many were, I admit, but not me. You can look in every record, every archive, but you will never find my name on any Party roll. I was not a member. Not for a single second.’

  Heuser’s voice had been rising with self-righteous indignation as he spoke, and his body had stiffened and straightened with new-found energy.

  ‘I know that,’ Paula said, very calmly, watching him almost visibly deflate as he slumped back down in his chair.

  ‘Good … good … Then maybe you’ll ensure that my case is not tainted by any false allegations. These things can sway a jury. I’ve been involved in enough prosecutions to know that.’

  ‘The facts of the case will of course be presented as accurately and fairly as possible. Now, can we get back to your application to join the police?’

  ‘Certainly. In ’51 the government realized that it was simply impossible to run the country efficiently if all the men who had any experience were forbidden from being involved. So they said that all those of us who held Beamter rank could go back to our old jobs, with a full pension entitlement as if we’d worked throughout the intervening years. That was very generous, I must say.’

  ‘So you naturally sought to rejoin the police?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But you didn’t actually go to work again as a detective until 1954, three years later. Why the delay?’

  For the first time, Heuser seemed uneasy. ‘There were a number of technical and, ah, administrative matters to sort out.’

  ‘Really? What kind of matters?’

  ‘Well, for one thing, the old Berlin police headquarters on Alexanderplatz had been bombed flat, so it was impossible to get hold of all my service records. And of course, Alexanderplatz is now in East Berlin, so even if the records had existed, the Commies wouldn’t have handed them over.’

  ‘Is that why you had to fake your doctorate of law, Herr Heuser, because the original records had been destroyed?’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he blustered. ‘What in heaven’s name do you mean, “fake”?’

  ‘Fake, as in falsify … as in claiming to be a Doctor of Law on your application to rejoin the police and using that title ever since, when in fact you are no such thing.’

  ‘How dare you make such an outrageous suggestion, young lady! I have been proud to call myself “Doctor” for the best part of twenty years.’

  Heuser was angry and showed it. Paula was disgusted, but betrayed no trace of anything except calm, methodical competence.

  ‘Maybe you have,’ she said. ‘But you never completed your legal studies and the certificates that you presented to the Rhineland-Pfalz police were fakes. It’s true that you were granted your university degree in law on 27 July 1936 in Berlin, but that’s only the first stage in qualifying as a lawyer. You didn’t complete the others. There’s no point denying it. We’ve checked. Not every record was destroyed, you know.’

  Some criminals keep arguing that they haven’t done anything wrong, even when presented with the evidence that they have. Heuser was smarter than that. Like a general making an orderly retreat, he conceded his initial position, but moved to another line of defence. ‘Well, all right, that’s true … I didn’t obtain a doctorate, not in a formal sense.’

  ‘What other sense is there? Either one qualifies or one does not.’

  ‘In times of peace, maybe. But those times came to an end. I went to be trained as a senior detective at Berlin-Charlottenburg and came top of my class. I then had some considerable success as a detective in Berlin. My superiors deemed that academic and practical experience to be at least the equal of a final set of exams, and I was allowed, officially, to call myself Doctor. Believe me, I would not have dared use that title if it hadn’t been approved at the very highest level. General Heydrich wouldn’t have stood for one of his junior officers lying about a thing like that.’

  ‘Nor, I imagine, would the personnel department of the Rhineland-Pfalz police.’

  ‘Well, what was I to do? I could hardly say: “Heydrich said I could have a doctorate.” He’s not exactly a good name to bandy about these days.’

  ‘So you lied.’

  Heuser smiled, his self-assurance somewhat restored. ‘I prefer to think that I provided an alternative explanation.’

  ‘Is that what you’ve been doing in all your interviews with us: providing an alternative explanation?’

  The smile vanished. ‘I don’t have to answer a question like that.’

  ‘Not to me, no. But shouldn’t you have an answer for your conscience? I was talking to Dalheimer …’

  Heuser tensed, waiting to hear what his co-defendant had said about him.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, he didn’t give the game away. Not in any way that would concern the court. But he did make what seemed to me to be a very interesting observation about you, that no matter how tough, how ruthless you might be in carrying out your duties …’ She looked down at her notes and read: ‘“he could remain, in dealing with us, always a sensitive person.”’

  Heuser shrugged. ‘How else should I be?’

  ‘Von Toll, too, spoke of you with genuine affection, as a good, loyal friend. And Schlegel – he’s still pathetically grateful for the letter of recommendation you wrote on his behalf to Mercedes Benz. He swears he could never have got his job without it.’

  ‘Schlegel’s a good man. He was applying to be the apprentices’ training manager. I knew he had a background in education. I was quite happy to point that out to the relevant parties. What’s your point?’

  ‘Very simply that you’re not a cold-blooded, emotionless psychopath, incapable of empathy with another human being. You know the difference between right and wrong. Look at von Toll. He’s been working for the Red Cross, trying to make amends. Don’t you want to do the same? Don’t you fear what might happen if you don’t? Think of Lütkenhus, killing himself.’

  ‘What has that got to do with anything?’

  ‘One of your old comrades committed suicide last July, three days after your arrest. You don’t think that’s significant?’

  ‘I don’t know. I have no idea why Lütkenhus should choose to end his own life and nor do you. Did he leave a note?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of.’

  ‘There you are, then. Believe me, young lady, I have seen plenty of suicides in my time and the reasons for them are seldom as obvious as you seem to think.’

  ‘This one is. He knew that if we’d arrested you, he’d be next. He couldn’t bear to live with the shame. And what I can’t understand is, how can you? Somewhere inside of you, surely there must be a voice screaming at you to tell the truth, to do good, to be redeemed … isn’t there?’

  Heuser said nothing. He remained almost motionless at the table. He gave no obvious sign of distress. Yet Paula could see that she had at last penetrated that great wall of denial, detachment and self-delusion with which Heuser had surrounded himself. He wasn’t alone in that, of course. They all did it. But because he was the cleverest and toughest of them all, his defences had been by far the most effective.

  An absolute silence fell upon the room. Time seemed to grind to a halt. Paula told herself to say nothing, but simply to let the intense internal drama whose only external expressions were the momentary tightenings of Heuser’s jaw and lips, the fractional twitches of his skin, the unconscious grip of his hands against the edge of the table and the burning intensity of his eyes play out.

  Finally he spoke in a dry, desolate rasp: ‘My conscience is clear. I have no reason to reproach myself. I never did anything …’ he paused again for more than a minute, stopping himself more than once on the verge of speaking as he tried to assemble the correct form of words. Then he finally finished his sentence: ‘… for my own profit, or for any motivation other than the desire to do my duty to the best of my ability.’

  ‘You can do better than that,’ Paula said softly. ‘For the sake of your soul, you have to do better than that.’

  Again Heuser said nothing, and then, quite unexpectedly he smiled, though there was a wistful sadness in his face and his eyes seemed to be focused on something far away in space and time as he said: ‘You remind me of someone I used to know: a very beautiful young woman, just like you. She also wanted me to repent …’

  Paula cleared her throat, disturbed by the intimacy with which he’d spoken, and concentrated fiercely on her notes. ‘Are you referring to your former colleague, Fräulein … ah … Tietmeyer?’

  Heuser chuckled. ‘Biene? Heavens no! That poor, sweet girl never thought anything but the best of me. No … I was thinking of someone else …’ His voice dropped to little more than a sigh. ‘It really doesn’t matter who.’

  Paula now regretted her brief, unplanned moment of insight. She wanted very badly to get the interview back on track. ‘Very well, then,’ she said, ‘we can agree that you returned to the police under false pretences. Did the men who gave you such glowing references know about your deceit?’

  Heuser too seemed relieved to be returning to the main business of their interview. ‘No … but it wasn’t relevant anyway. They knew I was a damn good cop. And that’s true enough.’

  ‘Yes it is. That’s why they called you the Beagle.’

  ‘Really?’ said Heuser, the corners of his mouth twitching in amusement, the skin around his eyes crinkling as the smile spread. ‘I always thought it was because I had such long floppy ears.’

  Paula couldn’t help it. She laughed. Then she saw that Heuser was smirking like a man who’s scored a point and knows it. He’d caught her completely off-guard. She’d thought she’d been ready for everything. It had never occurred to her to be armoured against his charm.

  ‘Never again,’ she told herself, and got back to her interview, ‘There’s no denying your progress once you resumed your career. As one of your former colleagues told us, “Heuser had sharp elbows.”’

  ‘I’ve always been an ambitious man. I won’t deny it, or apologize for it. Ambition is not an indictable offence, not yet anyway … and I dare say you’re glad of that too, eh?’

  Heuser’s confidence was growing. He’d thrown that dart, knowing it would hit its target. His malice was as precise as his humour. Paula felt the control she’d been seeking slipping further away from her. She could just imagine the delight Heuser was taking in putting this presumptuous young woman in her place. Well, she’d see about that. She went on. ‘On 1 May 1954 you joined the Criminal Police in the state of Rhineland-Pfalz with the rank of commissar and in October were posted to Kaiserslautern. On 1 January 1955 you were made the head of the Criminal Police department there. On 18 May that year you regained the rank of detective superintendent and two months later were transferred to the criminal investigation office of the state of Rhineland-Pfalz. Within a year you were running that too, initially in an acting capacity and soon after as a formal appointment. By the start of 1958, less than four years after rejoining the police, you were the chief detective in the entire state.’

  ‘That’s right. And do you know what Herr Wolters, the state interior minister, told the press when I was appointed to that post? He said I had “incontestable professional skills”. Those were his exact words. You can look them up.’

  ‘I already have,’ said Paula.

  ‘Then why are we wasting time with this grotesque charade? Why have I spent months locked in this damn prison when I should be doing my job, putting real criminals behind bars?’

  ‘Because you are a worse criminal than any of them.’

  Heuser did not rise to the bait, but remained absolutely, almost exaggeratedly, calm. ‘Just for your information, Doctor Siebert, I have dedicated my entire life to the maintenance of a lawful, orderly society. The only thing I have ever wanted to be is a policeman. Now, I am feeling fatigued. If you will excuse me, I’d like to go back to my cell.’

  Heuser rose from his seat, though he made no attempt to step around to Paula’s side of the table, instead remaining perfectly still as she gathered up her papers and put them away in her briefcase. When the guard came in, Heuser held out his hands to be cuffed without making the slightest fuss. Only when he’d been marched halfway to the door did he politely say, ‘Excuse me for a moment,’ to the guard, then stop, turn and face Paula again. ‘There was one other thing I meant to say …’

  She looked up from her case. ‘Yes?’

  ‘There is someone else you remind me of.’

  Paula couldn’t help herself, for of all the things in the world about which human beings are curious, they are most curious about themselves.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  Heuser smiled. ‘Isn’t it obvious? You must be in your late twenties, no? A year or two away from thirty, I’d say. We’ve already established that you’re ambitious and it’s quite obvious that you take your work very seriously, always endeavouring to do your absolute best. I’ll make another guess and say that you very much look up to Dr Kraus: his experience, his wisdom, his absolute focus on the case in front of him, to the exclusion of everything else. Oh yes, this is all very familiar …’

  And now, too late, Paula realized where he was going as Heuser concluded: ‘because you remind me so much … of me.’

  *

  The appointment that had kept Kraus from seeing Heuser was taking place at Ramstein airbase, the headquarters of the US Air Force in Europe and heart of the huge Kaiserslautern Military Community of more than 50,000 US personnel. During his own time in Kaiserslautern, Heuser had worked very closely with the American military police, and now Kraus was hoping to get a sense of how he’d been regarded. To this end he was meeting Air Force Lieutenant-General Hank Bradford, the KMC commander tasked with maintaining relations with the local German population.

  Before the serious business began they exchanged polite conversation and Kraus said, ‘May I ask you a favour, General?’

  ‘Sure, but I can’t promise to grant it.’

  ‘It’s not serious. I was just hoping to go to the PX store and buy some candy. I am, you might say, addicted to Hershey bars.’

  ‘Hell, you don’t have to buy candy here,’ Bradford laughed. ‘We can give you plenty of that. You don’t mind me asking, where’d you learn to speak English so well?’

  ‘The same place I got hooked on Hersheys – Texas. I spent a couple of years there when I was younger.’

  The general narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. ‘Is that so, the Lone Star state, huh? I guess you could tell me quite a story about that …’

  Kraus gave a noncommittal shrug.

  ‘Another time, maybe …’ said Bradford. ‘So, this man Heuser … Now I’ve got to admit, I wasn’t here when he was serving with the local police. I only arrived a few months ago. But I asked around and plenty of people remembered him. Good cop, knew his job, got things done, was what they told me. As you can imagine, with this many men a long way from home we always have issues with vice: women, drugs, pornography and so forth. Did you serve in the military, Dr Kraus?’

  ‘Yes, General.’

  ‘Then I won’t have to give you the details. The point is, you get a lot of dirty cops in that area. But Heuser was as clean as a whistle and real efficient. The local papers called him Der Prostituiertenjäger – that means the prostitute-hunter, right?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘So I guess what it amounts to is that no one here has a bad word to say about him. Can you tell me exactly what it is he’s supposed to have done? My adjutant told me you were a federal investigator working for an outfit called the ZSL, but when I looked that up, damned if I was any the wiser.’

  ‘I don’t blame you,’ said Kraus. ‘The full title of our agency is the Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen zur Aufklärung nationalsozialistischer Verbrechen.’

  ‘And what the heck does that mean?’

  ‘It’s the Central Office of the state Justice Administrations for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes.’

  Bradford looked shocked. ‘Are you telling me this Heuser character was some kind of war criminal?’

  ‘Yes, General, the very worst kind.’

  8

  Berlin: 8.15 a.m. – 2.30 p.m. 7 February 1941

  As a Commissar, Lüdtke was entitled to the use of a chauffeur-driven car. A gleaming black Adler Diplomat was waiting for him outside the HQ. It was a fine modern saloon with a long bonnet flanked by sweeping front-wheel arches and a four-door passenger compartment whose sleek lines reflected the very latest thinking in aerodynamic design. The sight of such a fine vehicle only added to my eager anticipation as I stepped over the running boards and took my place in the rear seat next to Lüdtke. My very first day in the job and I’d already been plunged into the thick of the action. A murder had been committed and the chase was on.

  The Adler was more than five metres long, but the scene-of-crime vehicle parked next to it, a massive old Maybach sedan known as the ‘murder bus’, was even bigger. Uniformed constables were loading the Maybach with forensic and photographic equipment as we pulled away from police headquarters and made our way towards Frankfurter Allee, the broad dual-carriageway that sliced almost due east through the city as straight as a Roman road. Lüdtke lit yet another cigarette and looked out at the bustling city. A shabby mass of workers and uniformed personnel scurried to work through a monochrome world of grey skies, white snow and soot-coloured buildings. The shop windows were half-empty and even the advertisements for Fewa detergent and Mouson skin cream on the sides of buses and trams seemed leached of colour. Only the vivid red Party flags that flew from countless rooftops and hung in giant banners down the facades of official buildings seemed to cut through the winter gloom.